Ian Swanson: New recruits bring strength to the SNP

Published on Thursday 12 February 2009 08:54

ALEX SALMOND went for a record 21 months without making changes to his ministerial team. And when the reshuffle came on Tuesday, the changes were minimal – but significant nonetheless.

Three ministers were sacked; two former foes were brought in, along with a senior backbencher; and a former friend was moved into a key role.

The result is not only a stronger team but a stronger First Minister.

The three who went – Maureen Watt, Stewart Maxwell and Linda Fabiani – were the ministers most criticised for their performances in office.

By bringing in Alex Neil as Housing and Communities Minister and Roseanna Cunningham as Environment Minister, Mr Salmond has shown he is big enough to include in his Government senior Nationalists who are not his natural allies.

Mr Neil, seen as a "fundamentalist" on the left of the SNP, stood against John Swinney, Mr Salmond's favoured candidate for the party leadership, in 2000. He was excluded from a frontbench role thereafter but became an ultra-loyal backbencher when the SNP came to power in 2007, constantly appearing on television and radio to argue the Government's case.

His reward now is a place in the ministerial team, although the current economic climate makes the housing remit a major challenge, some would even say a poisoned chalice.

There is a case for arguing a big hitter like Mr Neil, who has a wealth of business experience, would have been better used addressing the economic crisis more directly.

Mr Neil once claimed hell would freeze over before he was given a Government job, but others say his loyalty was bound to pay dividends eventually.

Ms Cunningham's appointment came as more of a surprise. She has been less prominent an advocate of the Government on the airwaves.

She and Mr Salmond have never been close. Indeed, some insiders say the reason Mr Salmond decided to enter the leadership contest after Mr Swinney quit in 2004 was because it looked as if Ms Cunningham was going to beat his preferred choice, Nicola Sturgeon.

Mr Salmond failed to give her a place in his shadow cabinet although she had long been a frontbench spokeswoman before that.

One insider admits to being "puzzled" about why she has been brought into the Government now.

But her role as convener of the Scottish Parliament's environment committee since the 2007 election gives her a firm knowledge base for her new job as Environment Minister.

Ochil MSP Keith Brown, a former Royal Marine who served in the Falklands in 1982, is seen as one of the most able members of the SNP intake of 2007. His four years as leader of Clackmannanshire Council gives him more experience of administration than many Nationalist backbenchers.

But the suspicion is his appointment as Schools Minister is more to do with rewarding him for his role as convener of the parliament's standards committee when it decided last year to recommend suspending the then Labour leader Wendy Alexander over her donations row.

As well as the new recruits to the Government, the reshuffle also sees an effective promotion for long-serving SNP stalwart Michael Russell.

The Environment Minister post he was given after the party's 2007 victory was a serious under-use of his talents. His new role as Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution is far more suited to his expertise and interests.

Mr Russell used to be Mr Salmond's closest ally. As the party's chief executive before devolution, he was the leader's right-hand man, and he was one of the SNP's leading frontbench spokesmen in the first Scottish Parliament.

But he lost his seat in 2003 and played an influential role in Mr Swinney's downfall as leader the following year, warning of the "men in grey kilts" who would visit him to tell him his time was up.

Despite being out of parliament, he then decided to stand for the leadership himself, a move which ended up pitching him directly against Mr Salmond.

Perhaps even more damaging to Mr Russell's standing with the party leadership was the book he published in 2006, called Grasping the Thistle.

Given his new role of spearheading the argument for independence in the run-up to the proposed 2010 referendum, he may be hoping the book stays firmly closed on the shelves.

In it, he and co-author, businessman Dennis MacLeod, suggested that as a "stepping stone" to independence, Scotland could negotiate a "New Union" with the rest of the UK, which would see Scotland taking power over everything except foreign affairs and defence, for which it would send an agreed sum to Westminster.

The book even appeared to question the wisdom of a referendum in the first term of an SNP Government.

"A nationalist government should therefore honestly say that it will hold a referendum on independence when it believes – and the people believe – our nation is ready to make that step. At that time and no other," it reads.

It will be interesting to see if Mr Russell chooses to elaborate on the idea as part of the National Conversation which his new job puts him in charge of.